Satire is a funny, delicate thing. It can be sublime on the rare occasion it is done well, but folds like a cheap card table when it isn’t. Consumerism is an easy target and is often the subject of such works. The original Dawn of the Dead lands solid criticisms of it. 1971’s They Have Change Their Face, on the other hand, has a reach exceeding its grasp.
The metaphor in this Italian production isn’t zombies, but vampires. Adolfo Celi (you know him from Thunderball) secretly heads a number of organizations, most of which are industries but some of which are government agencies. He regularly hosts meetings with the heads of those enterprises in a conference room in his old mansion deep in the mountains of a remote part of the country. Judging from the faces assembled for one such meeting, he even has control within the Vatican.
I was lost as to what Celi’s objectives were. He has a rant about the public not knowing what they want, so he will tell them what they want, but I didn’t buy that explanation. Instead, it seemed more like the power he exerts over that public has somehow made him immortal. So, he’s a kind of vampire, but the food that is necessary for his survival is nebulous.
It isn’t even like he drinks blood. At least, we see him eating food and drinking wine. That “food” is still quite repulsive, as we will see him, his secretary (Geraldine Hooper) and his guest (Giuliano Esperati) eating various forms of goo from compartmentalized plates that are like porcelain TV dinner trays. The goop they consume is visually distinguishable only by color and texture. It’s like they have several courses, all of which are that sludge astronauts consume from pouches.
I will concede that was an interesting idea, and I get the intended commentary on processed foods. Most of the other digs at consumerism, however, are a bit too broad, such as the three commercials a pretentious filmmaker presents for consideration. The first is in the style of Godard, the next Fellini, and the third the Marquis de Sade, who I’m pretty sure never made any films. I’m sure he would have, if he hadn’t inconveniently died so long before even still photography was invented.
Anyhoo, that last commercial has topless women bound to a wall, hands high over their heads, in a gothic mansion. An aristocrat comes in and flails them with a whip until he is bored. To reinvigorate him, the women suggest a wonderful new thing only now on the market. It is LSD, now available in regular and family sized bottles. The entire commercial is deliberately over-the-top and might have been funnier in a different film. Also, I don’t know how Italian television works, but I couldn’t suspend my disbelief enough to think they would ever show a commercial several minutes in length.
What frustrated me is this satire is in the framework of a horror movie with solid potential it then squanders. The plot centers around Esperati, an engineer at one of Celi’s auto manufacturers, being sent to the mansion by his boss, a Mr. Harker. Given that name, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise Celi’s character is named Nosferatu.
On the drive to Celi’s estate, Esperati discovers the locals in the nearest village won’t go near the old mansion. In stark contrast to the stock company villagers is Francesca Modigliani, a very modern young woman with a peculiar fashion sense, as she is topless under a heavy coat she lets hang open. She wants a ride and he is baffled by where she came from. As she cryptically explains, she came from over there and is going in the other direction.
One would think she would play a greater role in the plot but she stays behind in his car he leaves outside the mansion’s gates. She will still be there several days later, long after we have realized this film is not set in any kind of reality—not even magic realism.
The creepiest element of the film are the small white cars that endlessly patrol the grounds like guard dogs. They even travel in packs. Unresponsive drivers are behind the wheel of each, clad entirely in white, including their crash helmets. It is an odd, and genuinely unnerving element, and it hints at the genuinely creepy film this could have been.
There are even aspects of this work that are meant to be both unnerving and satirical, such as the voices coming from the air vents espousing the qualities of whatever product Esperati is interacting with at any given time. When he sits in a chair, the voices deliver a commercial about the quality of that furniture. More disturbingly, they expound upon the joys of a shower while he is actively using it. I’m not sure why the voices come through the air vents, but it could be the little people in the vents in Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark decided to branch out into advertising.
Unfortunately, They Have Changed Their Face could have been an uncanny horror film akin to Suspiria, but it wastes that potential on a satire of consumerism painted in strokes too broad to be impactful. Instead of being successful at either one, the elements of each just float out there independently of each other, until each sadly deflates on the screen. To use an analogy from the film, it is a tray of different things kept completely separate from other, never mixing, and each unsatisfying on its own.
Dir: Corrado Farina
Starring Adolfo Celi, Geraldi Hooper, Guiliano Esperati, Franseca Moglidiani
Watched as part of Severin’s blu-ray box set Danza Macrabra Volume Two: The Italian Gothic Collection